The Mygeetian Mission
by Delta Scorch
Summary: Delta Clone Trooper 88, better known as Ryan to his comrades, is sent on a scouting mission to the cold surface of Mygeeto with a small party of his fellow snipers.  But they might find more than what they bargained for in the ice.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"Some assignment," said Delta Trooper 185, known better to us as Manny.

He said it, but we were all thinking it. Three years ago, the Grand Army of the Republic had instated a new team of elite clones known as Team Delta. Inside this team, there were three divisions and three squadrons. Six members of Team Delta's sniper squadron, known as Scouts, had been sent by Team Delta's leader, Helm, to Mygeeto on a reconnaissance mission: Troopers 02 Matt, 36 Alex, 88 Ryan, 96 Rex, 185 Manny, and 909 Zan. Matt, Zan, and I were the three leads of the Scouts with Zan as the head, me second in command, and Matt in third. Helm had his orders to order us to bunker down on Mygeeto. He said it was important to the overall war. The other Scouts had other assignments elsewhere, probably actually seeing some combat. We never knew what we were supposed to do exactly, but Helm's orders sounded urgent. We had been sitting on that God-forsaken rock for 62 days (I counted) local time. Waiting. Waiting for something that never came. Most of the time we could barely see through the thick planetary fog. Matt had gone scouting ahead of us, but that was about 40 days ago. We listed him as missing instead of dead, not having completely lost hope in him. Now the only two men in charge were me and Zan. We knew the other three were getting restless, but try as we might to get reassigned, Helm insisted our location was crucial to defeat the Confederacy of Independent Systems and bring order to the Republic. So we waited. We never saw what was coming until it hit us.

From day to day we heard explosions from the far off Battle of Mygeeto. After 62 days of waiting, the hells of combat were starting to sound like paradise. However, this day was different. We heard another explosion, but this one shook the ground. It happened again. The sounds started to get louder, closer. "Be ready to move," Zan quietly told the troops, "this could get ugly." We were all on the edge. I double-checked my ammo count. Fifty-six shots. Just like yesterday. Just like the past 62 days. It was the most my sniper rifle would carry. BOOM! A final explosion knocked us to our feet. It was an AAT, the Confederacy's favorite tank. But this one was different. Instead of the normal laser cannon mount, this one had a strange grenade launcher on top. But it didn't fire grenades. Grenades couldn't create explosions like that. "SEPARATE!" I ordered. During the beginning of the mission, we had assigned each other partners just in case something like this happened.

We knew that mere snipers could not take down an entire tank. The only thing we could do was find better cover. The pairs were assigned as follows. I was with Alex, Manny was with Rex, and Zan was supposed to be with Matt. Seeing as Matt was missing, Zan was on his own, which was fine since he was the head of the Scouts. We rushed out of our makeshift camp and ran in all directions, hoping to stay out of the tank's line of fire. Another round from the tank knocked us down again and we all scrambled to our feet. We needed a plan, and fast."Who's closest to the tank?" I yelled into my helmet's comm. Zan saw where I was going with this idea and he raced towards the rear panel of the AAT. Making sure he avoided the small laser cannons on the side, he scrambled up into the tank, blaster pistol in hand. He opened the hatch and fired two quick shots into each of the droid pilots. He was too late. One of them punched in the self-destruct code when it saw Zan climbing the side. "EVERYBODY GET SOME DISTANCE!" he frantically shouted as he jumped off the tank and ran. The tank still had rounds in it, and in thirty seconds they were all going to simultaneously explode.

With a bright flash, the entire AAT went up in an earth-shattering explosion. Literally. A crater the size of a Star Destroyer was left in place of the AAT. It looked like an earthquake had hit the surrounding area. Sections of the ground jutted skyward about 15 meters and boulders were piled on top of each other. Thirty-six and I landed relatively close to each other. I did a quick physical self-scan and I was relieved to find the worst injuries I had were a few scrapes and bruises in places my light, sharpshooter armor did not cover. Manny appeared to be coming to the same conclusion and sat up with his sniper rifle across his lap.

"Remember that time I said there was nothing worse than flying with you?" he asked me.  
"Yeah."  
"I stand corrected."  
"Thanks for that, 36."  
"It's what I'm here for."  
I couldn't tell, but I was pretty sure he had a sarcastic grin underneath that helmet of his. We all had separate training besides Scout sniper training. Well, all of us except 02. He dedicated his skills purely on the art of sniping and reconnaissance, which is why he volunteered to go ahead. My greatest focus besides sniping was on space combat. I was the only soldier with more than basic pilot training, and every time I flew with them, they never let me forget it. I wasn't a bad pilot, I was just the only man they could tease about flying poorly, seeing as none of them actually had intense flying combat experience. But that flight experience wouldn't help us survive an explosion of that magnitude. I had to make sure everyone else was OK.

I couldn't see anyone else because all the debris was obscuring my view. I quickly commed in to the rest of them, "Scouts, report!"

A pause. That wasn't good. Then, static.

"96 here."

Thank God, a response.  
"36, reporting."  
"185, ready for action."

There was a long pause after that. I knew 02 wasn't going to comm in, but there was still one more Delta out there. Then I heard it.  
"*cough* *cough* Ryan, next time, YOU'RE attacking the self-destructing tank."  
It was 909. He made it. We hadn't lost another.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

After we had rendezvoused near what remained of the tank (which honestly wasn't much), we examined the attack more closely than we did during our adrenaline-pumped scramble. Nothing more could be said about the tank itself, since nothing but tiny scraps of charred metal remained, but we decided that the first explosions we heard came from the northwest, and sure enough, as we headed towards the northwest, we saw more and more large craters in the ground. What we couldn't figure out was how it knew which direction to go to reach us. It was obvious it wasn't attacking the main part of the battle, because it didn't know exactly where to fire. It was taking random shots into the fog, looking for something. Looking for us. Rex decided we should head back to camp and form a plan before moving on.

Unfortunately, during the attack, we failed to notice the tank hit a lucky shot on our base camp. The entire thing was a huge crater with random pieces of equipment everywhere. Our long range communicator was history, so we couldn't contact anyone more than 50 meters away.

"Well, there goes our plan for backup..." Zan said with a sigh.

"We could always try short-ranging the fleet at the main battlefront," I suggested.

Manny shook his head. "It's too far," he said, "Our comms can't even reach 02, and he's supposed to be closer to us than the battle is...if he's still alive..."

"C'mon now," piped in 36, "Let's not lose hope on 02. He's the third lead of the Scouts . I'm sure he's fine wherever he is."

I agreed with Alex, but the mission came first. I planned on finding 02 if it was the last thing I did, but we had to figure out where that tank came from. I had a feeling it was only the beginning of whatever our superiors were fearing. Hell, I was starting to fear it, too. But whatever Helm sent us here to stop, we were going to stop it using whatever means necessary.

We gathered what we could at our camp (if you could call it that anymore) and tried to formulate the best plan we could, given the circumstances. Manny and Rex would try to communicate with the main force to see if any more strange inventions had found their way onto the battlefield. Alex and I would team up with Zan, since he didn't have a partner, and we would try to scout out where the tank had come from. We decided to get some rest before we started out, so we waited until the next day, though I doubt any one of us got a decent amount of sleep. I don't know about the others, but every little explosion that came from the battle put me on full alert in preparation of another Confederation surprise. I heard one of my teammates rouse slightly.

"Hey Ryan?"

It was Alex.

"What is it, 36?"

"What do you think we'll find out there?"

"I wish I knew, my friend. I wish I knew..."

As I suspected, in the morning no one looked like they had slept a wink. But that was OK. We were all battle-hardened soldiers trained (and in our case, bred) to withstand days of non-stop combat without sleep. Even so, I would've like my team to have been in prime condition, since none of knew exactly what we were up against.

We were still packing whatever we could into our lightweight backpacks on our armor. We were never coming back to this camp, or what remained of it after the explosion, so we wanted to pack up everything we could. Which included our handy vibroswords we used for hand-to-hand combat. Those puppies were from our basic melee weapon training, and polishing them was one of our favorite time-consuming things to do during our 62 days of boredom. Man, those things were shiny. After looking mine over a bit, I sheathed the sword in its simple, plasteel casing, and strapped it to my back. After we were all done searching for anything we could salvage, we met in the middle of the carnage.

"Alright!" I exclaimed, "This is it! Let's finish this mission so we can get off this God-forsaken ball of ice and rock."

"*Amen to that*" 185 mumbled. We had all had enough of this foggy, deserted ice planet.

"See you on the other side!" Zan told Manny and Rex. And with that, we were off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

We tried to keep our comms up as much as possible, but after a while the distance between us got too big, and anything Manny and Rex said was too static-filled to understand. The last thing we heard from them was something like, "****approaching battle*****heavy resistance****only one way*****get to General Mundi*****FOR THE REPUBLIC!" then a series of sniper rifle discharges. If I had to pick a couple of Deltas to fight through waves upon waves of battle droids, I knew I could trust Rex and Manny.

Zan, Alex, and I tried our hardest to look for clues upon where the Separatist base would be located, but after 30 minutes of walking, we ran out of craters to follow. Apparently, the tank didn't fire until it thought it was close enough. So much for the easy way. We were trying to figure out another plan when we heard a strange humming noise.

"BLAST! Another tank?" Zan blurted.

Alex shook his head. "Nah, it's too high pitched."

As the sound got louder, it separated into multiple pitches. It sounded like an army of repulsors. That's when I realized...

"Speeder bikes."

"WHAT?" yelled Alex.

"You heard me right, speeder bikes. Probably IG Lancer Droids."

"You're kidding me," said Zan, exasperated. "I thought those were only spotted by General Kenobi on the Battle of Muunilinst."

"Apparently, now they're building 'em here, too," I replied, just as disappointed as Zan.

We could handle a single tank, but a platoon of IG Lancer Droids might be a little much for three Scouts to handle. Things were about to get crazy. As the first wave was coming out of the fog, Zan gave his orders.

"Let them pass the first time, but take out as many as you can before you have to dodge. I want you BOTH to give yourselves enough time to roll out of the way. No risky maneuvers!"

He looked at me.

"What?" I replied. "Just because I like to toy with the enemy - "

"RYAN!"

"Fine..."

I turned to face our black bodied metal enemies. They were coming in fast (duh, they were riding speeder bikes), so I brought my rifle up to my shoulder and fired. The shot went straight through the IG's chest, and as it slumped over, its bike slammed into another one on the left, which happened to be the one aimed straight at me, then it started sliding sideways along the ground towards me. The front end of the other one tipped into the ground, crashed, and went flying into the air, flipping as it sailed over my head. The sliding speeder bike skidded to a stop just a few feet in front of me as the wail of the rest of the speeder bikes raced by. It would've deafened me as they passed had it not been for the sound filters in my helmet. Unlike me, Zan and Alex had to duck and weave quite a lot to avoid The speeding droids and their lances, but they managed quite nicely.

As we turned around to face the rest of the IGs, I had an idea. I rushed towards the speeder bike that was stopped a few feet behind me. The IG droid was still slumped over in the seat. The bike itself was badly scraped, but still functioned. Drawing my vibrosword, I kicked the broken IG to the side and mounted the speeder. I smiled to myself, the tables had turned. As the rest of the IGs turned, Alex and Zan were still firing into the group. I revved up the bike, and raced past them.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Ryan," Alex said into his comm.

I chuckled.

"I do, too, Alex. I do, too."

The gap closed surprisingly fast, and within seconds I was narrowly avoiding lances and slicing droids to pieces. Now there were enough empty, functioning speeder bikes for Alex and Zan follow in suit with their own bikes and swords, and after a few passes, we had narrowed the IGs down to three. Unfortunately, we had shown most of our tricks to these three, and they seemed to be getting smarter. With another roaring pass, the three IGs were still alive. Unfortunately for them, we were, too. It was time to get fancy.

"Alright," I said, "We might have to single one out so that we can take them out one at a time."

"The middle one," Zan ordered.

With Alex in the middle of our formation, that droid was headed straight for him. Either that, or Alex was headed straight for the droid. Zan and I hit our accelerators and shot ahead of Alex towards the droid, Zan on the left and I on the right. We tried to time our attack, but the IG managed to dodge both of our swords. But Alex had a plan. His bike was still headed for the IG, but at the last second, Alex stood up, and jumped as high as he could, and both bikes collided in a fiery explosion. It was glamorous. It was stylish. It was beautiful.

It was going to get him killed.

Zan and I both said a few choice words as we slammed on our brakes, trying to turn around as quickly as possible.

"I got him!" Zan yelled as he locked onto Alex's landing point, trying to match his flight speed to catch him. I hadn't even noticed I was holding my breath when I let it out in relief as Zan skillfully caught Alex on the back of his speeder bike. But there was no time for celebration, there were still two droids left, and the same trick wouldn't work twice. That's when the idea struck me. The droids were still riding in close formation, and Alex didn't have to focus on driving anymore.

"Alex!" I shouted as we were flying next to each other, "Grenade!"

Alex nodded. He flipped out one of his two Thermal Detonators and set it. As we about to pass the IGs, Zan and I didn't even try to hit them with our swords as Alex neatly threw his grenade at one of them. It stuck with a satisfying *clunk* as we zoomed by. One second. Two seconds. Boom.

We turned just in time to see the explosion tear apart both the droids and their bikes.

My Scouts had overcome yet another obstacle. And now we had a pair speeder bikes. With navcomputers. And the last entry had return coordinates. Now we could accurately track where they came from. The hunters had become the hunted.

I grinned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

We rode through the rest of the day and by nightfall, we were exhausted. "C'mon, guys," I yelled over the roar of the repulsors, "The navigation computers will still be programmed to the same coordiantes in the morning. We need our rest." We set down in a small valley, hoping that is was low enough that our bikes wouldn't be spotted by enemy scouts looking for us. The night was cold and cloudy. Fortunately, our armor kept us from being affected by too much of the cold, but we could still feel the hard air's bite against the lighter parts of our uniforms where our armor didn't fully cover us. We didn't start a fire as a precaution against the smoke giving away our location, and the cloud cover obscured our few of the stars. The complete and total darkness was slightly unsettling. Random noises came from all around us, including the soft rumble of explosions coming from the far-off battle. These didn't usually affect us (after years of fighting, there was hardly anything that could distract us from well-needed sleep. You never knew when you would get another chance), but there was something odd about the constant, almost muffled sound of crunching snow and ice. It was almost like footsteps. It WAS footsteps. I turned on my helmet's night-vision setting and slowly got to my feet. It looked like Zan and Alex heard the noise, too, and they started to do the same. We slowly rose to our feet and abandoned our make-shift camp as quietly as possible, circling around the source of the noise. It was approaching the camp, not knowing that it's ambush had been backfired. As soon as it reached the spot where, not five minutes ago, I was lying down, we all realized what our intruder was. It was a clone. In standard issue Delta armor.

"02!" exclaimed Zan.

Startled, Matt whipped around and brought his blaster to face Zan. Then, realizing who it was, lowered his weapon and laughed, relieved. The reunion was joyous, but short-lived. After a few pats on the back and some more relieved laughter, Matt told us his story. Apparently, he had found some sort of CIS base, but they pinned him down and were looking for him as we spoke. They jammed his long-range communications, which is why he couldn't relay his location to us. That's when I noticed something strange.

"Matt, what happened to your Scout armor?"

He was wearing what looked like a compilation of Scout standard armor, unpainted Commando armor, and droid armor...all smothered in oil and grease.

"Well, the droid armor was more useful for covering my exposed body parts than this lightweight sniper stuff, so I salvaged some from the droids I broke. But, the story behind the Commando armor is a bit of a tragedy."

He led us over to a spot not far from where we were. It looked like a make-shift grave. Next to the grave, were three piles of Republic Commando armor that were missing certain parts that Matt was using.

"I whipped the grave up when I found the bodies and the droids had lost my trail. Apparently, they were the ones who sent a warning to the Republic, which is why we're here now. It looks like that warning cost them."

The four of us stood there in silence for a while. Then Zan looked at me.

"Well," he said quietly, "no need letting their loss be in vain. Let's go, we have work to do."

Zan turned toward where Matt said the CIS base was, but Matt grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait, there's also no need letting this armor go to waste."

"He's right," I said, "This armor isn't going to protect us from an onslaught of battle droids. We need to prepare. We need rest. I know we want to get off of here as soon as possible, but I'd rather it not be in a body bag."

So we took the armor and rigged it to fit our Scout armor (Boy, was it MUCH heavier than the sniper armor that we were accustomed to, but we managed to walk in it. We kept our own helmets for the sake of keeping comms simple as none of us wanted to reprogram our ID tags into the Commando helmets. Then, we rested for the night. I was on first watch. Nothing happened. I'm assuming nothing happened during Zan and Alex's watches, since I wasn't awakened in the middle of the night by blaster fire. We decided to let Matt sleep through the night without a watch, because he obviously didn't get much sleep during his days of isolation.

In the morning we packed our things and formulated a plan. Matt had scouted out the exterior of the base, but he didn't know much about the interior, or why the hell a CIS base was in the middle of nowhere on Mygeeto so far away from the main battle. Or how the tank knew where we were. All of which was necessary information. We were about to put our stealthy little Scout plan into action, when all of a sudden we heard the sound of distant repulsors.

"Oh, God, not more Lancers," I muttered.

"No, the sound is too deep for speeder bikes." replied Alex as we were both looking out into the cold void toward the sound.

Whatever it was, it was getting louder, and closer. The wind-blown snow was still hindering our vision too much to see anything farther than a few meters. Zan was the first to figure it out.

"REPUBLIC GUNSHIPS!" yelled Zan over the ever-closing roar.

On my HUD in my helmet, I noticed Manny and Rex had come back within range. I have no idea how they found us so quickly, but God, was I grateful. One of the LAAT gunships dropped down close to us. The others just kept zooming past towards the unseen CIS base. Rex and Manny jumped off the gunship, then it took off to join the others. Our Scouts were fully reunited once again.

"HOO-AH, everyone! Long time no see!" said Manny.

After another short-lived, joyous reunion filled with laughter and back-pats, we filled Rex and Manny in about our half, and they filled us in about theirs. Apparently, the other Deltas on the Mygeetian frontlines encountered the same modified AATs we did, and when Rex and Manny showed up and briefed them on our situation, they were more than happy to give us some backup and create a new frontline closer to the CIS base. Apparently the tactic worked, since the other line was retreating towards the CIS base. So now our stealthy plan was thrown out the window, since apparently the CIS knew an attack was coming at their not-so-secret base.

"But, we're not off this rock, yet," said Rex at the end of their story.

Manny finished for him, "They want us to infiltrate the inside of the base while the attack is going on outside the base. They want us to figure out what the base is there for and to see if we can take it down before too many clones are killed."

It looked like we had quite a job on our hands. But I was ready. After facing a tank head on, jousting with a few lancer droids, and putting on some Commando armor, I was ready for anything those droids could throw at us.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The backup was a double-edged sword. Our original plan exploited the fact that they were hunting _us_, and not expecting an attack. Well, now it was quite obvious that they were under attack, and the droid defenses were on full alert. So, that shattered our old plan and we STILL had to figure out a way to infiltrate the Confederate base unnoticed. To add to the already war-enhanced stress levels, the explosions we had been hearing for 40-plus days (I had lost track of standard time after the tank incident) were now MUCH closer and MUCH louder. Concentrating was a thing of the past. But we still needed a plan. After a few hours in the Republic command center that was set up outside the battle, we decided on one that we thought might just do the trick and get us all off the planet alive.

The six of us set up a small sniping formation a ways off on the West side of the Confederate base. We chose this location because one, the battle was going on towards the North-Eastern side of the building and two, towards the South there was nothing but a sheer, icy cliff. So, the west side was pretty much our only option. From our location, we could see that the base was about four stories high. On the ground-level, there was a wide two-story high hanger door lined with hundreds of inactive SBDs, or Super Battle Droids, waiting for someone to activate them for the impending battle. The last thing we wanted to do was to attract attention to ourselves and have someone activate that army of metal for the only purpose of demolishing six Scouts. That would probably be bad.

Above this hanger door, was a small walkway protruding from the third story with doors on each side. There were a few SBDs patrolling the walkway, but other than that it was completely clear. We decided that walkway would be the easiest point of access. Duh. Now the only problem was getting up there. On Zan's command, Manny, Alex, and I scoped up and took out the three SBDs at once. Three clear shots went clean through the metallic heads: pure poetry. Our only task left was getting six snipers (four of them half-clad in heavy Commando armor) up an icy, metal wall.

Rex came up with the idea. All of us except for Matt had basic swordplay training, so we had vibroswords with us. We crept up to the side of the wall, trying VERY hard to avoid detection by whoever might be holding the button to activate those droids. The plan was to slam each of the five swords into the wall, and use them as handholds and footholds to reach the walkway. Of course it was Rex, the swordplay wizard, who came up with this idea, as he was the most proficient with handling blades. There was a slight problem, however. The force required to thrust each blade into the wall would cause A LOT of noise, and it might attract unwanted attention to our location and plan. Again, that would probably be bad. So we waited. Any loud, noisy distraction would work for all intents and purposes. Fortunately for us, we were literally half a mile away from a battlefield, the center of loud and noisy distractions.

As one of many explosions shook the ground, Rex slammed the first blade into the side of the wall all the way to the hilt. Not a sound. We waited. The droids were still inactive. We all let out a sigh of relief. Rex hoisted himself up and perched on the sword hilt. The next explosion came. Rex slammed the next sword into the wall. He almost lost his balance, but managed to use the wall as support. The droids were still inactive as Rex climbed up to the next sword. Third explosion. Third sword successfully in the wall. Rex climbed a little more. By the fourth sword, it looked like he got the hang of things. Finally, all five swords were in the wall and Rex hopped up onto the walkway.

Now it was our turn. Manny went up first, followed by Alex, Zan, and Matt. I went up last. My job was to retrieve the swords as I went up. We didn't know if we would need them, but it never hurt to have them just in case. I had secured a rope around my waist and Matt had taken it up with him and tied it to the railing on the walkway. Now Manny, Matt, and Alex were helping support my weight as I made my way to the top while Zan and Rex were keeping watch, just in case. I had all five vibrosword sheaths attached to my back, so I didn't have to hold the swords when I pulled them out of the wall, but it hindered my flexibility a bit. I climbed up to the second sword hilt and turned around cautiously. The first sword was about half a body length away, so I could reach it fairly easily if I leaned into the tension of the rope, but getting it out was going to be a challenge. There was really no easy way to get a vibrosword out of a wall in the first place, let alone suspended from a rope along a slippery wall of the enemy base. This was going to be interesting.

I managed to yank the first sword out of the wall with as little noise as possible (though I nearly lost my balance doing so) and I sheathed it without a second thought as I climbed to the next hilt. A couple hilts and a few close calls later, I had made it to the top hilt and was ready to pull out the fourth. Unfortunately, as I yanked it out, an explosion much bigger than its predecessors shook the entire building. I slipped off my footing and the others lost their grip on the rope. I plummeted. Free-fall is not the most fun experience. Luckily, Manny managed to grab hold of the rope. As the sudden tension reached my gut, I placed my hand on the wall, to stop my body from slamming into it and possibly activating those droids, now only about four feet away from me. After mumbling a few choice words, I regained my composure, sheathed the fourth sword and Manny, Matt, and Alex were pulled me. I grabbed the fifth and final sword on my way up, and handed them back out after I had both feet on the walkway. It felt SO good to have both my feet securely on a floor. I rolled up the rope and attached it to my equipment belt as Manny hacked the door's control panel to get us inside.

As the door slid open, a wave of heat descended upon us. After being stranded on an ice planet for 60 days, the heat felt almost unbearable, even though it was probably the same heat as a Coruscant summer. It was too dark inside to see much, but there was a soft glow, almost like a fire, coming from inside. We quickly checked our gear, made sure our guns were ready for action, and quietly crept into the unknown Hell.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It turns out the nightmare was only beginning. Our weeks of being stranded on this icy rock seemed like a walk in the park compared to what we found inside the building. We crept quietly along towards the nearest light source, and when we got there, I was in shock. We found ourselves on a small balcony overlooking a giant battle droid assembly floor. Not only were we facing an excruciatingly large army of battle droids, but it turns out they had also set up a factory, right here on Mygeeto. Our forces were fighting an infinite army of droids. Row upon rows of parts were strewn across an assembly line literally below the balcony we were crouched on. The three-story high building we originally thought was a base was really just one giant room with some hallways surrounding it. Our men didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

Manny broke the silence. "This is bad."

Duh. But someone had to say it. If he didn't, I would've about 2 seconds later. The importance of our mission was now painfully obvious. Either we destroy this factory, or the CIS win the battle on Mygeeto, then the surrounding systems, and eventually the galaxy. This was, indeed, very bad. We had to come up with yet another plan, but we didn't have the luxury of a Republic outpost and trained military strategists to help us. So, we improvised.

There was a strange structure in the center of the factory. It looked like it was pumping and processing molten metal. It reminded me of something from the war history lessons when I was about 5-8 years old on Kamino. Back during the Jedi Civil War, there was a rumored "Star Forge" that took elements from a nearby star's core and used it for manufacturing ships in a relatively short amount of time. It was supposedly what kept the Sith Empire from falling immediately to the overpowering Jedi and the Republic. A man named Revan eventually overthrew the Sith Empire and the Star Forge disappeared into the unknown, restoring peace to the Republic. The reason I remembered this lesson this much was because the Jedi Civil war was the last great war since these so-called "Clone Wars." Anyway, this structure reminded me of the history lessons.

As I watched the device for a while, I noticed a pattern. It collected molten metal, stored it, then when it opened up, the parts were completely assembled, as if it was one piece, just like the ancient Star Forge. Then it collected more metal. But from where? When it dumped the product, all the metal was used. It couldn't have been getting it from any supply convoys or we would've spotted the shipments. There was only one explanation, the molten material was coming from inside the Mygeetian core. That sounded EXACTLY like the Star Forge. Once a Sith, always a Sith, I guess. First the old Sith Empire used the Star Forge, now these Sith that the Jedi Generals are saying control the Confederacy are using something similar. It would also explain the strange prototype tank we fought earlier. No regular factory could probably produce something like that before now, else the CIS would've had tanks like that all over the galaxy.

Okay, so all we had to do was to shut down one machine to save the galaxy from the Confederacy. No pressure.

We were only formulating our plan for about 30 seconds when all of a sudden we hear a metallic voice below yell, "INTRUDERS!" All of us looked down only to see 50 worker droids look up right at the balcony we're crouched on. Various swear words were muttered as sirens started blaring. We jumped up and prepared for the inevitable fight. Two doors on either side of us opened up as battle droids started pouring out. One charged right at me. I dodged the blaster bolts it aimed at my face, and once it was close enough, I grabbed it's chest, flipped it over my head, put a couple blasts through its head with my pistol, and slammed it on the ground. One down, 2,947 to go. I took up a position where I could see most of the oncoming droids and fired away.

As the battle raged on, Zan and Matt had taken up a back-to-back position and were taking droids out with sniper bolts, turning slowly to create a 360-degree killing zone. Not only was Rex taking out tons of droids with his sniper rifle, but he had also mounted his vibroblade the front of it and was using it, quite elegantly, as a very long bayonet. Alex had impressively killed enough droids to create his own bunker, and was currently sniping droids one by one. Manny had joined him and chucked a grenade into the middle of the droids. There was something slightly comical about 30 battle droids flying and flailing through the air in different directions. There was no way this was going to end quickly and easily, and we were starting to run out of ammo. Then there was still the giant "Core Forge" machine problem. I was beginning to doubt our success rate, and our survival rate for that matter. I quickly thought of a plan that would ensure the best survival rate for the rest of my team. But it didn't look good for me.

I jumped into Alex's bunker and drew my vibrosword. Quickly, I carved a hole into the wall and kicked it out. A rush of cold air hit my visor, fogging my vision for a second.

"You two! Get out of here!" I yelled at Manny and Alex.

They argued, "The mission's not complete, yet! We have to stay!"

I saw this coming, I had prepared myself. "You're not staying only to get killed! Not on my watch! Now GO!"

Grudgingly, they jumped out the hole, and landed softly into the snow a story below. Now for the other three.

"ZAN, MATT, REX! COME ON! I'LL TAKE OUT THE MACHINE, BUT I'M NOT LETTING YOU THREE DIE, TOO!"

After getting the same reaction from those three as I did with Manny and Alex, They made their way to the bunker. I didn't see them jump out, I was more focused on my task. I jumped down from the balcony and on to the factory floor, rolling as I hit the ground. Unfortunately, as I came to my feet, a Super Battle Droid was standing right in front of me, wrist blaster aimed at my head. If droids could smile, he would be. Luckily for me, Zan didn't follow orders too well. Instead of jumping in the snow to safety, he followed me and jumped of the balcony, landing right on top of the SBD. I quickly put a bolt through the metal behemoth's head as we both ran towards to machine.

As we were running, I couldn't help but say, "I told you that you weren't going to die with me."

"If MY plan works, neither of us will die," Zan replied. Well, I couldn't say no to that, so we kept running. As we got closer, Zan yelled, "You disable the machine, I'll hold off as many battle droids as I can!" He spun around, skidded to a stop, and starting firing into the oncoming wave. As he was doing so, I looked for a way to disable the thing. I found a control panel on the side, but unfortunately, there was no off switch. That hindered things. As I fiddled with the controls, I realized there was only one way to do this. I pulled out one of my grenades and tossed it into the mouth of the beast. A rumble came from deep within the factory. The whole planet seemed like it was shaking.

"ZAN, RUN!" I yelled as I sprinted towards the factory's main entrance, still constantly firing at our adversaries. We were about halfway there when the explosion hit. The entire factory erupted in a giant fireball as Zan and I (along with a few now broken battle droids) were flung through the air. Even though probably about half my bones were broken, flying through the air was a sensational experience...that is, until I hit the ground. It hurt. A lot. I struggled to look up to see rubble falling back to the earth, the building nearly leveled.

Then, I blacked out.


	7. Epilouge

**Epilogue**

I woke up.

I was lying in the infirmary back on Coruscant. I was covered in bandages from head to toe, and my entire body was screaming in pain. Then, the bacta kicked in. I looked around. There was my team, all lying in beds and in similar condition to what I was in. Except, they were all awake, and talking. Zan looked over at me.

"You're awake! How do you feel?"

"Amazing. Wonderful. Superb. You?"

He laughed. "The same. Helm told me to notify him when you were awake...HELM!"

The door opened. Our Delta Leader, Helm, strode into the room in his formal uniform. After seeing him in armor for 3 years it was slightly weird, but I held my tongue. He looked at me and smiled.

"Trooper 88, the next time you want to blow up a building, I want you OUT of it first, understood?"

Now it was my turn to laugh. "Yes sir, understood. How'd the battle go?"

"Well, you Scouts did a fine job of messing things up for the CIS, but I'm surprised you managed to make it out of there alive after your position was compromised, so I'm a little curious to hear YOUR story first."

"I don't know much about that either, sir. I ordered my Scouts to evacuate before I blew the building sky high."

Manny chimed in. "I can fill you both in. After we dropped out of the building, Alex and I were ambushed by SBDs. We fought as hard as we could, but if Matt and Rex hadn't dropped in when they did, we probably wouldn't be here. With some quick thinking, Alex managed to get all us of back behind Republic lines."

"Well, almost all of us," interrupted Alex.

"C'mon Alex, there was nothing you could've done. Matt made his own choice."

Wait a minute. His own choice? I did a quick head count. There were five Scouts in the room. Matt was missing. Again.

"Where's Matt?"

Alex hung his head. I knew then. He didn't make it. Rex put his arm around Alex's shoulder and continued the story.

"Matt volunteered to hold off the CIS forces while we escaped. Alex tried to force him to come with us, but he said we wouldn't make it."

We were all quiet for a moment, then I broke the silence.

"So what about the rest of the battle? Did General Mundi win?"

Helm answered. "The General's dead, son."

"WHAT? How? He's a Jedi Master! Certainly no Confederate droid could've killed him!"

"They didn't. The Galactic Marines did."

"WHAT?"

"According to Emperor Palpatine, the Jedi turned traitors and so he executed Order 66."

Order 66. The "Kill the Jedi" order. None of us ever thought we were going to use that. I started to get a little frustrated and I felt bogged down with questions bouncing around in my head. My voice started to raise and I spewed out a few of those questions at lightning speed to no one in particular. I just needed answers.

"Why would the Jedi turn traitor? They wanted nothing more than to protect the Republic. Wait- EMPEROR Palpatine?"

"Whoa, whoa, 88. Slow down. Yes, Palpatine took the liberty of declaring a 'Galactic Empire' with himself as the Emperor."

"Well then, he must've seen the Jedi as a threat and ordered them killed for no good reason!"

"DELTA EIGHTY-EIGHT, THAT'S ENOUGH! EMPEROR PALPATINE IS STILL YOUR COMMANDER IN CHIEF!"

Oops. I had struck a chord with Helm. I tried to calm down and lower my voice.

"Apologies, Sir. I just always saw the Jedi as our comrades."

"Understood, just keep in mind who you are talking about from now on."

There were still a couple more questions that needed to be answered.

"Sir, were ALL the Jedi killed?"

"It doesn't look like it. According to some rumors from various legions, some escaped the order when they saw other Jedi being killed, and other legions didn't have a body to verify the kill. The most interesting rumor comes from the 501st, however. Apparently, they were led into the Jedi Temple by none other than General Skywalker under the name of 'Darth Vader.' Now a tall man in a black suit, who also refers to himself as 'Darth Vader,' leads the 501st, who now call themselves 'Vader's Fist.'"

Skywalker... I always looked up to him as the greatest Jedi General. And now he was a traitor to the "traitorous" Jedi. So much for heroes.

"So what happens to us, now, Advisor?" asked Alex.

"Now, you will be known as Imperial Stormtroopers. You will receive standard Imperial Scout Trooper armor soon, then I will continue to be the Leader for The Empire's Team Delta. Ryan, as a reward for your success, I'm giving you full control of Delta's Imperial Scout Squadron."

That took me by surprise.

"I'm honored, sir, but isn't that Zan's job?"

Zan answered for Helm. "I'm actually taking the open Lead position of our swordplay division. I figured Rex could use some help in his field." Rex punched Zan in the arm and they both laughed. I chuckled, too.

"But what will become of the Scout leads? With you retiring and Matt...well...missing, there are two open spots."

"Well," said Helm, "since Trooper 707 Michael led the Delta infantry force on the Battle of Mygeeto, and Alex brilliantly and bravely led your Scouts away from the ambush at the factory, I figured they should take the open leadership positions."

I wasn't arguing. Michael was a good sniper. I noticed this when I fought at his side at Geonosis. And he knew how to lead and train, and of course I couldn't deny Alex's skill with a sniper rifle. The fit seemed perfect. Rex already had the top leader position in our swordplay division and Manny and I discussed him going into the engineering corps after the Clone Wars were over months ago. If we ever made it out alive, that is. Well, we were out. And we were alive. So, of course Manny would be working in the engineering corps, leaving Alex as the only Scout available for the position. Which worked out perfectly. Out of all the Scouts who I had fought with at Mygeeto, he was my number one choice for a leader.

"Get better, Deltas," said Helm as he turned around, "Troopers like you don't come to our ranks every day. We need you."

And with that, began our adventure into the new Galactic Empire. An adventure that began with two of us in hospital bunks and 3 of us wrapped in bandages practically from head to toe. I had a bad feeling about this, but being together with all my Deltas, I knew we could make it through together.

So here we go.

HOO-AH! 88 out.


End file.
